Trust Cultures in Crisis: Scandal, Populism, and the Relational Dynamics of Democratic Legitimacy

This article advances trust research by theorizing political scandals as moments of rupture where culturally embedded trust cultures, media logics, and populist strategies collide to reshape democratic legitimacy. Moving beyond proceduralist accounts, it conceptualizes trust as a relational, emotional, and historically situated practice—produced and fractured through moral expectations and cultural scripts. Drawing on the Dengvaxia vaccine controversy in the Philippines, the article traces how protective trust cultures centered on children and familial care were activated and amplified by sensational media coverage, transforming a complex public health issue into a national moral scandal. Populist actors strategically seized the moment, reframing the controversy as elite betrayal and recasting themselves as moral protectors of the people. This reconfiguration of trust not only delegitimized institutions but eroded vaccine confidence and deepened political polarization. The case illustrates how, in contexts shaped by relational trust cultures, scandals become existential tests of democratic legitimacy—exposing the limits of technocratic responses and the power of emotional and cultural framings. By foregrounding trust cultures as an analytical lens, the article calls for greater attention to the cultural and emotional dimensions of trust in media-driven democracies, particularly across the Global South where democratic legitimacy remains deeply contested.